


Red, White, And Blue

by Spoon888



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Booty Calls, Drunk Sex, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Office Sex, Post Unicron AU, Post-The Transformers: Unicron Issue 6 (IDW), Terrible Taste In Bars, True Form Starscream
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2020-12-13 23:23:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21005867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spoon888/pseuds/Spoon888
Summary: An ongoing collection of short, sweet, sinful, or sad Optimus/Starscream one-shots, inspired by prompts and requests.





	1. True Form Starscream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> IDW Unicron AU where no one died, Cybertron wasn't destroyed and Optimus and Starscream have awkward conversations about what they're going to do with future they didn't realise they'd have, featuring big True-Form-Starscream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For an anon, whose request I had so much fun with!

  
Optimus sat at a too-small, sticky table, under Earth-inspired disco lights. The lively atmosphere of his surroundings seemed to exist solely to make his melancholy mood seem ridiculous. The planet was celebrating. Everyone was celebrating.

He wasn't celebrating.

Too much destruction. Too much loss.

He cast the darkest of his thoughts from his mind, taking a sip of his cube and choosing to focus on happier things, such as what had brought him out of his self imposed social isolation.

A simple comm message; _wanna meet up?_

Starscream. He sat facing the entrance, not wanting to miss his arrival.

Over recent years Optimus had become accustomed to seeing a 'different' Starscream every time he happened upon the seeker, and no two reformats were the same. He went from sleek crimson, to bulky squared armour, to high, expressive wings, to majestically broad ones. But his face, sometimes narrow and sharp, or rounded and pale, always bore the same self-assured smirk, with wings -whatever shape and colour they may be- high with endless confidence.

He hadn't ever given the constant restyling much thought. Despite the four million years of relative familiarity between himself and the seeker, he didn't particularly _know_ Starscream, had never spoken to him outside of political or end-the-of-world matters. He had cluelessly assumed the changing forms was a sign of vanity.

Starscream's cocksure attitude never gave him any reason to doubt that assumption.

Having arranged to meet the former, disgraced republic leader at **Nuts And Bolts** -a somewhat more adventurous bar than he was used to frequenting, but a lesser known and therefore safer meeting place- Optimus wasn't sure what form he was meant to be keeping an optic out for. Any mech with wings and a clever smirk could potentially be the seeker he had arranged to see. Fortunately there were few mechs who could carry themselves like Starscream did, even in a foreign, unfamiliar frame.

He took another drink, keeping an optic on the doorway, listening to the repetitive tune and senseless lyrics of the pop music, every passing second tightening the nervous knot in the pit of his tanks.

It would be ridiculous of Starscream not to show up, he told himself. _He_ was the one to extend the invitation after all.

Or maybe he had seen Optimus's choice of venue and decided to stand him up. Optimus certainly wouldn't blame him. 

The doors rolled open and a large shuttle strutted in like he owned the place, of a size with himself. Optimus automatically looked aside, focusing back on his cube, watching the sweet mercy swirl sink towards the bottom of the glass because he had waited so long to drink it.

"Prime?" A shadow fell over him.

Optimus looked up from his position wedged under the too-small table to find the shuttle stood over him, lilac optics framed by a dark face. A set of double wings stuck up on his back, and his armour, blue and white, with occasional streak and block of red, was rounded and smooth. Brand new. Polished to a high shine. And scented with Kalisan Rock Crystal- an aroma Optimus could detect even in the musky atmosphere of the bar.

Even without the obvious tells, Optimus would recognise Starscream anywhere, in whatever form, however unexpected.

His chair scraped loudly across the textured multi-grip flooring of the bar when he stood, knocking his knees on the edge of the table in his haste. "Starscream?"

The trademark smirk stretched across his mouth, and Optimus knew, without a doubt.

"Evening, Prime," Starscream drawled.

Optimus noted the high, somewhat nasally voice. He had kept the same vocaliser.

He let his optics run up and down Starscream's taller -_tall_ frame, realising with a twinge of surprise and appreciation, that Starscream was half a head taller than him.

"This is an unexpected change."

Starscream shrugged, wings moving with his shoulders. He sat himself down and the bar stool creaked under his weight. His knees didn't even fit under the comically small table, and once again Optimus cursed his choice in location.

Clearly still unused to being a heavier build, a frown pulled at Starscream's mouth at the sound of the pained stool. Optimus prayed to any Gods left that it didn't break.

"Like it?" Starscream asked, deciding the stool was beneath his notice. "I thought it finally time I let myself be ...myself."

"Your true form." Optimus nodded, having heard the tale from Windblade.

"As close as I could get," Starscream smiled. _Smiled._ Didn't smirk.

It wasn't the new face -expressive and open, and with calmer lilac optics, less inherently menacing- it was his underlying sense of hope, the genuineness to his emotions. The new frame symbolised a new start for Starscream, and after everything that had happened; the war, the near end of the world, Optimus hoped he got it.

"So," he sat back and turned his cube in his hand.

"So," Starscream lifted his hand and gestured to the bar-mech to order his own drink.

"What will you do now?" Optimus asked, mostly to avoid having to answer that same question himself. "Rejoin your trine? I heard Thundercracker has made quite the name for himself as a promising screenwriter. He won an award, did he not?"

"An _earthling_ reward." Starscream looked despairing. "And he has got enough to deal with without me visiting. What with that ..._vermin_ he insists on caring for."

Optimus smirked behind the battle-mask, "Are you referring to Skywarp, or Buster."

"_Both_," Starscream snorted. "At any rate, Earth isn't for me. And I've _out-grown_ my trine." He gestured down to himself, clearly meaning it both metaphorically and literally.

"Once a seeker, always a seeker," Optimus reassured. "They would be happy to have you."

Starscream scoffed, "I wouldn't want to intrude on their 'perfect retirement'. I need some time to myself anyway, before..." He cut himself off, and turned keen lilac optics on Optimus. "And what about you?" He purred dangerously. "What does the future hold for the greet Optimus Prime? Who will you be inflicting yourself on in this glorious time of peace and prosperity?"

Optimus swallowed uncomfortably, looking aside, struggling not to let on that he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do now.

Starscream noticed nonetheless, his wings drooping in unison. He cleared his vocaliser, looking at his cube, the lights, anywhere but at Optimus. "I never had the chance to say before; I'm sorry."

Optimus frowned. "Sorry?"

Starscream pursed his lips and frowned. "About Megatron."

Optimus felt his spark clench at the reminder. "...I was going to say the same thing to you."

Starscream said nothing, focusing on his own dark fingers around his cube. Silence prevailed. They both took a drink, an unspoken toast to their lost enemy, and friend.

"Figures," Starscream finally broke the silence with a mutter.

Optimus looked up, curious.

"I'm finally taller than him and he goes and gets..." He trailed off again, lifting his gaze and taking in the bar. "What _is_ this place, Prime? It looks like the inside of Soundwave's chest compartment."

"It's somewhere off the radar," Optimus said sagely, leaning back and taking in the unique interior with a newfound appreciation for his gaudiness. "Anyone likely to recognise us together wouldn't care enough to spread word."

One of Starscream's brows rose, "Don't want to be seen out in public with little old Starscream, huh?"

Optimus should have jumped to defend himself, and their budding friendship, but a sudden glitch in his processor-to-mouth filter caused him to instead say, "Not so _little_ anymore."

Starscream blinked, and Optimus was about to apologise and voice a more genuine explanation for the smoke and mirrors, when Starscream started laughing.

"No, you're right." He waved Optimus down, "I'm finally of a size befitting my personality."

"You'd have to be a city-former to make that true."

Starscream shrugged, unbothered. He lifted his cube and drank the rest of it in one big, impressive gulp. Optimus got the distinct impression he was showing off about something with the way he set the cube back down and smacked his lips, sighing loudly.

"Thanks for the cube, Prime." He winked, and began to rise, slowly, unused to manoeuvring such a heavy frame. "We should do this again."

"Stay," Optimus blurted before he could think to stop himself. Starscream froze halfway out of his seat, staring with wide lilac optics. Optimus cleared his vocaliser. "It's early still, I'll buy you another drink."

Starscream raised his hand to reject it, but Optimus insisted. "You can't possibly be full." He pinned Starscream with an intense look. "Those new tanks of yours must take a lot of fuel."

Starscream lowered himself down again, gingerly, a curious but nervous expression on his new face. "Is that a good idea?" He asked, almost sounding like he hoped it wasn't.

"Of course it is." Optimus honestly could give a slag if it was a good idea or not. He gestured to the bar-mech to bring them another cubes. "The best one I've had all century."


	2. Booty Call

_From: Optimus Prime  
_

_To: Professor Starscream  
>starscream_of_vos69@vosianroyalscienceacademy.ct.net<_

_Subject: The request of your company_

Starscream stared at the message that had just popped into his inbox at two hours past midnight on a weeknight, and after a moments disbelief, opened it.

_Starscream,_

_Apologies for the lateness of my communication. I require your immediate assistance in matters of a personal nature._

_Yours truly,_

_Optimus Prime_

Starscream opened his comm link to reply. _Did you really just booty call me from your official work frequency?_

A response pinged in immediately. _I am not familiar with the term 'booty'._

Of course he wasn't. Starscream sighed, rolling out of his berth and letting his pedes hang over the edge. _Do you want me to come over?_

_As stated in my previous communication, your **immediate** assistance is required._

Starscream pouted, settling back against the berth sheets lazily. _Why should I?_

_I am still at the office._ Optimus replied. _And Prowl has just left._

Starscream sat back up again in a hurry, processor really filling to the brim with ideas for all the adventurous, naughty things the pair of them could do together in the Prime's so very official office with no one around to interrupt or stop them from defiling Optimus's big desk, or the council chambers, or the records room. 

_I'm on my way!!_ He replied in a clumsy hurry, already throwing off the covers and darting for the door.

He had only just jumped off the edge of his balcony and transformed into jet-mode when his comm began to ring with an incoming call. Optimus. He answered.

"I said I was coming!" He screeched over the wind. "Hold your horsepower!"

A low breathy noise came over the comm. "_Good,_" Prime exhaled against the speaker, voice deep and husky, "_because I've already started."_

Starscream activated his EPU and broke the sound-barrier as he sped towards the senate district. Even at this hour there were security guards on the landing pads outside, but an hysterical shriek and frantic arm wave from Starscream stopped them from approaching and distracting him from his urgent plans with their inane questioning. They recognised him well enough not to need to check he had access.

He raced through halls and skidded to a halt in front of Optimus's office door. In his haste he sent the wrong access code for the door three times. The door control panel flashed red with rejection.

_Access denied. Try again in 3:00_

Starscream had the patience to watch the timer count down five seconds before snarling, stepping back, lifting his nullray, and shooting it off the bulkhead. The doors swept open as an automatic fail-safe. Concerned at the sound of the gunshot, inside Optimus had jumped from behind his desk, his optics bright over his mask with alarm, face flushed from the self-serving he had obviously been doing under that desk.

"Starscream, what-?"

"You said it was urgent," Starscream strode into the room, uncaring of the damage he'd caused. It was a problem for maintenance come morning.

Optimus's shock receded in light of his annoyance. "I didn't mean _that_ urgent."

Starscream slid on his aft across the desk and landed elegantly in Optimus's surprised lap, sending most of the files and work previously littering it clattering to the floor. He took Optimus's endearing surprised face between his hands and pushed his thumbs against the manual releases he knew were hidden there.

The mask slipped away to reveal a handsome face and glowing cheeks. Starscream kissed soft lips with a satisfied hum, letting his hands wander down Optimus's large frame to play with glass and windshield wipers. He dragged his finger along a wiper teasingly, before pinging it and letting it snap back against the windshield. Optimus moaned beneath him.

He broke the kiss and leaned back to grin. Optimus tried to follow him, lips parted and cheeks flushed, but Starscream dodged the kiss.

"I thought this was urgent?" He teased, letting his hand fall beneath Optimus's thighs. He felt around, stroking damp mesh and playing with Optimus's swollen node. The mesh was parted, the callipers worked open. Starscream pushed his thumb inside. Optimus tipped his hips forward wantonly.

Starscream slipped off his lap and lifted one of Optimus's heavy legs, pushing it out and back. Optimus slumped down his high backed seat somewhat, putting himself on display, optics hooded and vents laboured. Starscream slung Optimus's knee over the armrest of the chair, then lifted the other leg to do the same. Optimus's brow creased at the stretch and unflattering positioning, but he didn't shift to correct it.

"This is hardly dignified," he complained lightly, slumped halfway down the chair, legs spread and entire valve on display.

"Well, this is a special occasion," Starscream ran a teasing digit through Optimus's folds, gathering lubricant on his finger tip. "When else is the entire building going to be empty enough to enjoy this?"

He sucked his finger into his mouth, tasting Optimus's lubricants. Optimus's head thunked the back of his seat. He shuddered. "Security will still be on patrol," he warned thickly. "And you've blown the door lock-"

"Then you'd better not give them a reason to come snooping along this corridor, hadn't you?" Starscream braced his hands on either armrest, stepping close and leaning over Optimus. "Try not to make _too much_ noise."

Optimus had the nerve to smirk at him. "That's more of a problem for you, isn't it?"

Starscream scowled, letting his codpiece _snk_ open. His spike emerged against Optimus, it's length sliding between plush mesh folds, the ridge separating the bulbous tip from the shaft catching Optimus's delicate node with every gentle rock against him. Optimus shuttered his optics again and let his head hang back in defeat, his hands gripping the backs of his knees to keep his legs open for Starscream.

Starscream tilted his hips back to make room to line himself up, gripping his spike to keep it steady as he guided it forwards. Optimus stiffened and was a tight for a moment, before relaxing with a slow, steady exhale, and Starscream slipped inside him with ease.

He groaned at the silky softness of Optimus's valve, all for him. He rocked his hips to relish it, then blindly leant up to seek a kiss. Optimus breathed across his cheek and they came together lazily, kissing then realigning their mouths to deepen it. Optimus opened his mouth to grant Starscream access. Starscream thrust his tongue along Optimus's as he began to grind into him.

Sighs soon turned to grunts, and Starscream started up a pace, chasing his pleasure. Optimus's hands clutched for him, pawed at his wings, tugging and pinching, encouraging him to go faster, reach deeper.

Starscream braced a hand against the top of the high-backed chair and drove into the Prime harshly, his optics alight and teeth clenched. Optimus moaned at each thrust, his legs jumping where they were thrown over the armrests, until Starscream ground into him and hit a spot that had him seeing more than one star.

He cried out, clutching at whatever he could reach of Starscream. He felt armour crumble under his grip and heard a hiss of pain from the seeker, quickly transmuting into a gasp of pleasure as the added sensation of pain sent Starscream into an overload of his own. He held deep, wings fluttering rapidly.

Then he stopped. Optimus breathed, frame pinging. Starscream ducked his head to receive another kiss, optics dim and vents harsh.

"You were loud," Optimus murmured into it, slowly letting his legs down off the armrests.

Starscream wriggled and began to climb into his lap, still pestering him for kisses, "No, you were."

"Hmm?" Optimus secured Starscream over his lap, letting him sit side-saddle with a hand on his hip and another massaging the dents his grip had left in a wing. He was waiting for the inevitable rant over the damage, but it never came.

"We should do this more often?"

"'Booty' calls?" Optimus guessed, perhaps now understanding the meaning of the term.

"Obviously," Starscream frowned. "But I meant doing them in your office." He sighed and glanced between the scattered files on the floor and the suspect 'substance' staining the seat of Optimus's chair. "It's twice as fun when you're ruining expensive things that don't belong to you," he smirked.

Optimus smiled and went to kiss him again-

-When the automatic lights in the corridor outside turned on.

They froze when they heard one of the security guards call out, "Prime, sir? Are you alright? We heard noises?!"

The office was trashed and stank of interfacing. Mortified, Starscream looked frantically for somewhere in the office to hide himself. Before he could take one step off of Optimus's lap he was being shoved to the floor and bullied under the desk. He smacked his head on it's underside and cursed.

"Sir?" The security guard poked his head around the doorway. Starscream stilled. "The lock is broken."

"I'm aware," Optimus cleared his vocaliser, shifting his legs awkwardly. Starscream smacked his knee when he was really kicked. "It's fine. Maintenance will see to it this morning."

The security guard nodded, but hesitated. "You had a visitor, Starscream of Vos. We thought he was with you. Our records indicate he hasn't left yet..."

Optimus went still. "I ...haven't seen him."

The security guard frowned. Optimus tapped his fingers on the desk.

"If that's all-"

"Of course," the guard quickly stepped away. "You're busy, I apologise. Goodnight sir."

Starscream waited until the footsteps of the security guard had faded away before jabbing a finger in a delicate looking seam on Optimus's thigh. "Dirty liar."

Optimus pushed away from the desk and peered under it to smirk at him, offering a hand to help him up. "I learnt from the best."


	3. After Class

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Think of this as a direct sequel to the previous drabble. Thank you roboapollo for requesting it!

The Vosian Royal Science Academy was the sort of exclusive institution that had catered to the upper-echelons and those they occasionally pitied enough to allow scholarships. It was the sort of place Orion Pax would never have been allowed to glimpse at, let alone step foot in. The refurbished astronomy wing -bombed and then ransacked during the war- had been rebuilt in a style reminiscent of the golden times to match the rest of the original campus, with tall spires, long, reaching windows, and open balconies. 

And being traditionally inspired, and Vosian, the building didn't boast a lot of stairs. Or elevators.

Or doorways. 

Optimus couldn't help feeling out of place as he took the scenic route through campus to enter the building, walking around the back. The doors these buildings did have were hidden, like the Vosians saw them as an unnecessary blight on their architecture. 

When Starscream visited Optimus at his apartment, he often came in through the window- a fact that had alarmed Optimus to the point of holding a gun to what he had assumed was an intruder's head. As disconcerting as it was, it was simply more polite, to a seeker, to use a window. 

The opposite of what their more sane, ground-limited cousins, believed. 

Optimus would indulge Starscream's culture more if he could, but the lowest windows on the wing were on the third story, and he wasn't about to start scaling the building in the late afternoon, with students still milling about the campus. 

And he wasn't a particularly inconspicuous visitor to them- both Prime and grounder. 

_I've just arrived, _ Optimus sent to Starscream, trying not to let his irritation at having to meet him here seep into his writing. As inconvenient as it was to navigate seeker-cityscapes, Starscream was behind on his marking, most of his students were failing his class, and his last project had just had it's funding receded. It was either see him here, or not see him at all. 

_ Where are you? _ He sent. 

_Lecture hall, _ Starscream responded. _What's taking you so long? _

Optimus refrained from sending him back an essay length explanation detailing the lack of reachable windows and the lone single door that allowed entry into the building that had been hidden behind a sculpture to make it even more difficult for visitors to find. _I'm coming now _

The Vosians were also fond of tall, narrow hallways. Seekers late for classes or appointments shot by overhead, taking the corners as recklessly fast as he'd seen Starscream do, but with none of the flight experience. Optimus took note of the scorch marks and paint scuffs on the walls where past students hadn't been as skilled as they'd thought they'd been, and winced in sympathy. 

When he finally reached the lecture hall, Starscream was at the desk, hunched over a stack of datapads. He made a noise of disgust as he marked an 'F' across the page so big Optimus could see it from the doorway. 

"Long day?" He asked. 

Starscream gave him a cursory glance. "You have no idea," he drawled, and tossed the datapad into the stack he'd already worked through. "Anyone with an ounce of intelligence must have died off during the war," he muttered. "My entire class are a bunch of -of invalids!" 

Optimus reached the desk and peered at one of the datapads, frowning at the 'note' Starscream had written in the margin. It just said: _Idiot._

"Have you tried constructive criticism?" He asked diplomatically. 

"Why waste my time," Starscream scoffed. "They're all going to fail anyway." 

Optimus had grown very fond of Starscream, and thought him brilliant in many ways, but was beginning to doubt his effectiveness as a teacher. And by his understanding if a student failed, their teacher failed too. He decided not to point this out to Starscream for fear of getting attacked by the hand welding that red light-pen. 

He laid a hand on Starscream's shoulder, squeezing comfortingly. "You should take a break, I'll buy you fuel."

"On campus?" Starscream pulled a face. "I'd rather drink the suspect high-grade I confiscated yesterday." 

Optimus arched a brow. "What sort of high-grade?" 

Starscream's expression become mischievous then. He swept a hand across the desk and knocked the datapads, both marked and unmarked, to the floor carelessly, then unlocked the electronic lock on the desk draw, tugging it open. 

Optimus peered over his shoulder to glimpse the wide range of confiscated items inside, taking note of the understandable -narcotics and weapons- to the petty -a valentine's day card and a yo-yo. Starscream took the high-grade out and offered it to Optimus. 

It was in a sealed thermos. Optimus twisted the top off and the sensors in his olfactory sizzled. 

He veered back, blinking coolant from his stinging optics. "Paint stripper," he coughed. 

"Which they made in the wash-racks," Starscream frowned, taking it back. To Optimus's horror, he took a drink. "Urgh. Tastes like what Skywarp used to brew in his cockpit." 

Optimus ...did not want to know. 

"Should you really be drinking at work?" 

Starscream scoffed, "You're such an Autobot."

"Not anymore." 

"Then stop acting like it," Starscream brandished the thermos at him. "Learn to live a little." 

Gingerly, Optimus took the offered drink. He pinched his olfactory to save it from further abuse, and tipped the thermos up. His mouth filled with the foulest energon he might have ever consumed. His glossa burned and his optics pulsed bright with the sudden and instant spike in power levels. He coughed, holding it away, "Primus-! That can't be safe for consumption." 

"Hears to risking it anyway," Starscream muttered, taking an elegant little sip. 

Optimus let it lie. Starscream had had a tough week, so he drank from the thermos without protest when Starscream offered it back to him, letting his hopes for a nice evening with a warm nutritious cube of energon fade from his processor as the buzz grew. He stopped tasted the tangy aftertaste after the third swig, and by then he was having to prop himself against the desk to stop swaying. 

Starscream wasn't fairing much better, having situated himself between Optimus's legs, one possessive hand on his hip, the other clumsily feeding him the high-grade. Optimus drank, optics shuttered, and when the thermos was removed a pair of lips replaced it. Optimus opened his mouth and lowered his chin, glossa slick and clumsy as it twined and twisted with Starscream's, their rhythm breaking with half laughs and gasps. 

Optimus heard something crack against the floor but didn't bother to look at the fallen thermos, inching himself up to sit on the desk, letting his thighs part so Starscream could fit flush against him. Thumbs ran across the length of his windshield wipers, teasing him lightly. He tried to lift Starscream about the waist to hoist him into his lap. 

His hands were smacked, Starscream growling, "This is my classroom." 

Optimus's high-grade soaked processor wanted to remind Starscream that it was a lecture hall actually, but Starscream shoved him and his processor blanked. He fell across the desk with a heavy clunk that echoed around the empty hall. He turned his head and peered down his own prone body to see Starscream drop his head and kiss his abdomen, working his way across the glass of his windshield until he was crawling over him and biting lightly at his neck. 

Optimus groaned and wrapped arms around Starscream, brushing fingers across the edges of his wings. 

"You're going to get us both fired," Optimus moaned, letting his head hang back to enjoy the attention being lavished on his throat cables.n"We need to start locking doors-"

"They can't fire me, I have tenure." 

"Just me then." 

"They can't fire a Prime, you big drunk idiot," Starscream muttered, lifting his head and pressing a kiss to his lips. Optimus leaned into it, and Starscream kissed him again. Optimus never thought such a soft, chaste kiss could hold so much meaning. "Now, c'mon. Open up so I can mark this place off the list." 

Optimus did as asked, only realising after all the awkward fumbling that led to Starscream pressing into him with a low, husky moan, that what Starscream wanted to mark off was a bucket list of public or semi-public places he wanted to nail the Prime. 

It was borderline blasphemous. Had he been sober, he might have been offended. 

But he wasn't sober, and he was in the middle of some clumsy but perfectly adequate fragging. 

He angled a leg out to the side and urged Starscream on with a pede around the small of his back. The hard edge of the desk was beginning to cut into the top of Optimus's shoulders where he was too tall to lie across the entirety of the desk, but for all Starscream's talk of seeker stamina, the rush of charge in his fuel lines did little to lengthen the dalliance. 

Starscream overloaded with a hitch of breath and slump of shoulders. His forehead dropped to Optimus's chest, his wings giving a few frantic flicks as he finished. 

Optimus stroked a limp wing fondly, listening to Starscream's vents as he built his strength back up. Seeker's burnt through fuel quickly, and strong high-grade, much like whatever it was they'd just consumed, had an effect on Starscream much like a sugar rush would to a human. 

"I need to lie down," he heard Starscream mutter on top of him, where he didn't seem to realise he was already lying down. 

Optimus looked around the empty lecture hall, which anyone could walk into at any moment, and then back Starscream's slumped form, and wondered if he might able to carry Starscream out of the astronomy wing and across campus unseen if he snuck out the backdoor only a lowly grounder like him would ever use. 

All of a sudden, the inconvenience of having such an inaccessible building was coming in handy. 

"Come on," he grunted, rising and tossing Starscream over his shoulder. "I know a way out back." 

"Stop spinning!" Starscream complained, even though Optimus was standing still. 

Optimus bent to pick up the thermos too. It was probably best he destroyed what remained of his stuff. It clearly wasn't safe for consumption. Seeker consumption that was...


	4. The List

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Optimus finally decides to make things with Starscream official. Another continuation of the previous two chapters, requested by roboapollo. Thank you for your support!

Optimus had been naive in assuming Starscream's List was a running joke of sorts, something he mentioned only in passing as an excuse to do something juvenile, unprofessional, and borderline criminal in the most inappropriate of places. They would find themselves in an empty office, or a conference room, or passing by a janitorial closest, and Starscream would turn and give him one of his patented brow wriggles and a sly come hither look, and cleverly remind Optimus of his incomplete 'List', and Optimus's normally quick and logical processor could never conceive of a good enough reason not to.

So he was surprised one late morning, while lingering in a blissful moment of postcoital ecstasy, dozing lightly and savouring the twitch of a glossy wing under his cheek in the back of a privately owned city transport, when Starscream shifted beneath him and drew something out of his subspace.

Optimus lifted his head, cracking a fuzzy optic online, "What is-?"

"Nothing," Starscream cooed, sitting up and settling back across the seat they were entwined together on so his head could rest against the transport's door, "Just ticking something off."

He held a data-pad and used his tapered finger to swipe a tick across the screen. Optimus sat up quickly, bracing his hands on either side of Starscream's prone body. "That's not-?"

"The list?" Starscream wriggled it with a sly smirk.

With reflexes honed by millennia of war, Optimus's hand shot out. He caught the data-pad, but Starscream held fast, his smug expression transmuting to a scowl in a spark beat. "Hey, no-!"

Optimus used his superior strength to tug it out of Starscream's hand and returned to his side of the transport, pushing out a hand to keep Starscream at bay.

"Prime-!" He protested, vocaliser pitching up so high it vibrated the reinforced glass of the transport's windows, threatening to blow them out.

Optimus ignored him and kept one palm on the curve of Starscream's cockpit, keeping him at a respectable distance as he thumbed the data-pad, sweeping down a list that spanned _pages_. He only had time to glimpse at some of the locations listed; The Crystal Gardens, Mid-flight, Ratchet's Medical bay -before Starscream broke free of his grip with an incensed howl and launched himself at him.

Optimus dropped the list and it clattered under the seating when Starscream landed in his lap and knocked him back against his own door. The transport swayed midair at the sudden shift in weight, veering into the opposite traffic lane, but managed to correct and return to course before any major traffic incidents occurred.

Starscream didn't care about the near death experience so much though, and Optimus had to wrap his arms around the seeker's lithe waist to keep him in his lap before he could throw himself on the floor and scramble after the data-pad.

"The med-bay?!" Optimus shouted the location that had stuck out most of all, tightening his arms around Starscream's frantic wriggling body. "Why would anyone ever want to-?"

"We don't actually have to do it there," Starscream's cheeks had turned an interesting shade of lilac. Optimus felt his wings dip where they were pressed flushed against his chest. He relaxed his grip a little, but Starscream didn't launch himself out of his lap, and instead turned his head to pout at him.

"It's just a little fun."

Optimus sighed, "How many of those places were ticked off?"

Starscream shrugged, "Half a dozen. You're not as adventurous as I had hoped."

Optimus's optic twitched, "Forgive me if I prefer interfacing with you in a large comfortable berth, as opposed to some oily alleyway behind a bar."

Starscream smirked, "Should I remove that location from the list then?"

Optimus scoffed and pushed him out of his lap. Starscream dropped to the floor of the transport onto his knees with a little huff and glare, but ducked quickly to retrieve his data-pad from under the opposite row of seats where it had slid. Optimus sat back and enjoyed the view until Starscream crawled back out and brushed off his knees, data-pad slipped back into his subspace, safe and sound.

They sat apart from one another quietly, idly watching the city pass them by through the windows. The tension of their earlier ride before they'd collided in a crash of armour and kisses was now soothed to an easy intimacy. Starscream's blue fingered servo rested on the seat between them. Optimus lowered his hand and placed it on top. Starscream turned and glanced at it, expression puzzled.

"Again?"

"No," Optimus felt a frown cross his expression. "I merely..."

He trailed off at Starscream's judgmental look, and slowly pulled his hand back.

Perhaps he should write a list of his own. Things he would like to do with Starscream beyond the limitations of sexual intimacy.

Their transport began to slow as it approached the senate building's landing pad, and any chance at a quiet, private conversation between them about the nature of their casual relationship and where it was going -if anywhere- vanished at the sight of the greeting party stood awaiting them below. Optimus sighed, watching Starscream stand first and fan out his wings. He swanned down the extending boarding ramp with a hand raised to offer lazy waves.

Optimus followed sedately, content to let Starscream soak up the majority of the attention, and happy to watch the way his wings picked up as media camera's flashed and Starscream's fickle mood improved.

* * *

It was mid-cycle when Optimus received a comm from Starscream summoning him to the Main Council Chamber. Wondering if he had somehow missed news of an important bill, or worse, if Starscream had managed to get himself arrested -again- Optimus dropped everything and headed up there. When he stormed with purpose through the double doors into the light airy chambers though, he found himself in a near empty room.

"That was quick," Starscream commented from his seat on top of the podium. He was leaning back on his hands, legs dangling down over the edge and crossed at the knee.

Optimus exhaled the breath he hadn't realised he had been holding. "I thought it was urgent."

"Why would you think that?!"

Optimus recalled the comm message he had been sent and read it back. "'_Council chambers; now. Urgent!!'_ With _two_ explanation marks, Starscream."

Starscream shrugged, "I wasn't being literal..."

"What is it?" Optimus asked quickly, moving around the desks and climbing the stairs leading up to the podium. "Are you in trouble again?"

Starscream rolled his optics, but didn't seem as offended as he normally would at the assumption. Which usually meant he was after something.

He lifted an elegant blue hand and studied his pristine claws, acting as nonchalant as he could. "My afternoon class was cancelled. I have the rest of the cycle free."

Ah, Optimus knew where this was going. He began to turn away. "Unfortunately, I do not-"

"You're free now," Starscream eyed him, dropping his hand back to the podium and tapping his digits.

"I'm not," Optimus growled. "I was called away from important business. By a false alarm."

"And you've been gone from it a whole _five_ minutes and the planet hasn't blown up! A miracle," Starscream purred. He uncrossed his legs. And spread them a little. Optimus's optic twitched with the effort it took not to look anywhere but the seeker's face. "I think the galaxy can spare you another few moments, can't it?"

"Is this about the list again?" Optimus folded his arms, refusing to be moved by this wanton display. He hoped it meant he was building an immunity to it. Starscream was too seductive for his own good. "Allow me to guess. The council chamber is another one of your fantasy locations?"

"Of course it is," Starscream waved a hand. "But it also happens to be empty this time of day."

Between his spread legs, his panel snapped open. The sound drew Optimus's optic and he was staring at Starscream's dark grey valve without a thought for better manners. Legs widened further and the folds of the valve began to open, revealing the soft glistening inner mesh. Optimus felt his own panel tighten at the sight.

"Starscream," he growled.

Starscream stuck a finger into his mouth and sucked it, drawing it out with a little 'pop'. He lowered the glistening finger to his valve and pressed it in, his wings twitching and optics darkening. Optimus swallowed as his mouth began to water, and Starscream, an exhibitionist to his core, braced his other fingers against his inner thigh for leverage and began to pump his index finger in and out at a slow, teasing pace. As he stared Optimus down, his breath sounded loud and audible in the quiet, empty room. Optimus could hear it easily, even with the rush of fuel pumping in his audials.

Starscream pouted in disappointment, "You're not going to make me do this all by myself, are you?"

To add to his torture, Starscream pulled his glistening index finger out of his valve and placed his middle one next to it. He pressed them both in, and the colour across his cheeks turned a brighter shade of lilac as a soft noise escaped him. Optimus shifted his footing, his optics focused on the slide of those slight fingers pressing into Stsrscream's tight valve. As Starscream pumped them, faster and faster, breaths growing to pants, lubricant began to build, coating his fingers and escaping the rim on every in stroke. Optimus began to imagine what his spike would feel like in those fingers' place, a valve soaking wet and swollen with arousal, so tight it threatened to cut off the circulation.

Optimus was striding forwards before even accepting that he was giving in. The corners of Starscream's mouth rose into a smile at his approach, and he leant back further to give Optimus room to fit between his legs. Optimus grabbed his wrist to halt it's movements and released his face-mask with a fast, harsh snap to dive in to kiss the manipulative little sneak.

Starscream groaned into the kiss as Optimus began to pull his hand away from where it was buried in his own valve. He felt Starscream's wet fingers brush his abdomen as his hand searched for something else to grab.

Optimus replaced Starscream's digits with much wider fingers of his own, and felt Starscream stiffen and twitch against him as he stroked back and forth inside the silky, soft cavern, searching methodically for that place inside that curled toe pedes and shook thighs.

Starscream cried into his mouth when Optimus found that cluster of sensors inside him and nudged it, lighting the seeker up like a firework. His optics flared and his wings shot upright. Optimus focused on that place inside Starscream, stroking and pressing, and biting down on Starscream's plush lower lip with a growl when he felt his valve cycle down on his fingers as he began to overload, jolting uncontrollably as his frame was wracked with pleasure

Optimus wasn't foolish enough to think that was enough for this insatiable seeker though.

Coming down from his overload Starscream kissed him clumsily and wetly, his tongue sweeping across his lips insistently to force entry. Optimus accepted and sucked on the tip of his tongue, listening to Starscream whine and squirm as he released his aching spike from his codpiece and let it swell and rise to stand tall against his abdomen, bumping Starscream's glossy cockpit before he took it in hand to guide it.

He fed it into Starscream's valve bit by bit, until the tip was fully imbedded. Starscream's breath caught at the intrusion, his thighs shaking where they rested either side of Optimus's hips. Optimus pulled his spike out a little, then pressed in again, deeper. Starscream shook with another gasping cry. Merciless, Optimus pulled out just once more, before burying deep.

Starscream was slick, and wet, and _perfect_, cycling down on him in a delightful clench of greedy callipers. He pressed forwards until there was no more of him to fit.

Their frames met with a little tap, Starscream's cool cockpit glass meeting the sweltering heat of Optimus's armour. The glass fogged as his vents expelled across it. Starscream flung his arms up and around him, clinging to his back, his face dropping to Optimus's chest, mouth open to pant against his windshield. Optimus took his hips and held him steady, starting to move in what was a well practiced cycle between them, something that built speed and volume as it went. He watched Starscream's smaller frame sway with his movements, taken along for the ride.

He nudged Starscream back so he could see him better. Watch his optics dim and flicker, his mouth fall open helplessly. He dove down to steal one last fierce kiss, plunging his tongue into Starscream's mouth and thoroughly owning him.

When Optimus began to pick up the pace he had to draw out of the kiss, throwing his helm back to open his vents and suck in much needed air. Without the twine of their tongues to muffle Starscream's pleasure, the seeker began to gasp audibly, the growing intensity of Optimus's thrusts cranking up his volume. "Ah, _ah_," he cried, like he was surprised by the force every inevitable in stroke. "_Ah_-!"

Starscream bit down on his own lip to stop himself, but Optimus was far too taken with the delightfully soft noises. He pulled on one of as Starscream's wings, dragging it downwards to tug at delicate hinges. Starscream's mouth opened with a hiss interrupted by a sharp cry when Optimus slammed into him harder.

He was unable to resist the sway and flick off Starscream's wings, and leant over him to take the edge of one into his mouth. He bit down, indenting it with his teeth, growling around it when he felt claws sink between the panels of his armour on his back when Starscream cried out at the pinch of pain. "Optimus-!"

Optimus's movements became desperate and uncontrolled. His thrusts became fast but shallow, and with the flex and clench of Starscream's second inevitable overload, he was dragged into his own.

He moaned around the delicate metal wing in his mouth, the mounting of tension in his gut finally reaching it's peak and releasing with a warm euphoric flood inside Starscream. Optimus readjusted his mouth around the dented wing, licking at the crescent shaped dents he had created as his spike began to soften and twitch inside the seeker.

He lifted his head away from the wing and searched for Starscream's lips blindly, pressing a lazy kiss to the corner of his mouth. Starscream hummed happily, sated, and winced mildly when Optimus reluctantly began to pull his spike out of him.

Starscream leaned back with his legs still spread, the space between them now throughly used. Optimus watched a trickle of their mixed fluids -sparkling silver tinged with clear lubricants- start to leak out of his gaping valve, threatening to drip out of him and all over the podium.

"You're-" Optimus stopped himself from saying 'leaking', reaching into his subspace for a cloth to offer, but Starscream simply dropped a hand between his legs and wiped the escaping droplet away with a finger. Optimus watched, processor stalling, as Starscream brought it up to his mouth and sucked it off his finger.

He swallowed and smiled, then shut his panel with an abrupt snap. Optimus blinked in surprise.

"Knew you had it in you," Starscream purred, and hopped down from the podium.

Optimus's frame was still warm and riddled with confusing postcoital emotions. "Wait," he clutched Starscream's shoulder.

Starscream arched a brow. "I thought you were busy today."

Optimus struggled to think up an excuse.

As much as he loved doing this with Starscream, he resented how the risky and semi-public settings this always seemed to happen in made any intimacy afterwards difficult. When Starscream joined him at his apartment he could often steal a few moments with him afterwards, when he was still too exhausted to protest. But those occasions were few and far between. Starscream seemed to have some sort of aversion to doing this in a berth, to being close and comfortable with his partner after the deed was done. To taking his time to express affection and gratitude afterwards.

"My evening is free," Optimus said, even though it wasn't. He would clear it. Make sure it was.

"Mine is not," Starscream said, looking him up and down. Optimus then realised with a flush of embarrassment that his spike was still out. He quickly tucked it away, but when he looked back up, Starscream was looking at him with something akin to a reluctant sort of affection. "But I'm sure I can move some things around. Stand up a senator or two."

Optimus should really have advised him against that, but, "Come and fuel with me tonight."

Starscream's brows did that sly little wriggle of theirs. 'Is that a code for-?"

"It's not code," Optimus interrupted before he could get the wrong idea. "It's not a booty call. I want us to fuel together. To talk together."

Starscream looked confused. "We're talking now-"

"As friends."

Starscream stepped back, physically recoiling. "I don't need _friends_, Prime-"

"I do."

Starscream stopped, and looked at him.

"...Don't get your hopes up," he muttered, then swept from the room.

Optimus watched him go, his spark aching.

* * *

Starscream didn't actually want to go. Prime was acting weird and trying to get close, and in Starscream's experience, nothing ever good came from letting someone close.

This was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be a mutual way of blowing off steam. The Prime was his type, and quite obviously, he was Prime's type. They worked well together, and had great frags, and nothing was complicated or awkward, because it didn't _need_ to be. They didn't need to make it weird.

Prime obviously hadn't gotten that memo.

So he sat at home and glared out across the city from his balcony, trying to think of anything, and anyone, but the ridiculous Autobot. He stuck a hand into his subspace and pulled out the stupid list he and Skywarp had written years ago, part in the academy and partly during the war when they'd been bored or drunk. They'd started it after all the times Skywarp had been caught doing something unspeakable to -or with- Thundercracker somewhere he shouldn't have been. Like in the flight hanger, or the communal wash-racks, or on _Megatron's throne,_ or any of the other countless places they really should have just kept it to their own room and left everyone else's delicate optical feeds alone.

_"You're a teleporter without an ounce of stealth,"_ Starscream remembered once tutting and shaking his head at his useless debauched trine-mate. "_It's wasted on you."_

And so an indignant Skywarp had challenged him. "_With the way **you** shriek, you wouldn't be able to do it in your own berth without getting caught!"_

Challenge accepted.

Starscream scrolled down the list and smirked at all the successful ticks. Ha! Skywarp could suck on his own exhaust pipe.

His spark wilted with a sudden swoop of sadness though. Primus, he missed them.

He put the list away and dropped his head into his hands. What was the point of even having the list anymore? He hadn't seen his trine in months. They'd moved on with their lives.

And what was the point of even carrying on with Prime?

He thought about packing the entire petty endeavour in and just doing as his trine had always suggested and moving on, focusing on his work and his students. Building himself a _life_. 

His comm pinged.

_Nineteen hundred hours if you're still interested._

Starscream read Prime's comm message mournfully. Desperate old fool. He really seemed to want to make something of this. He was chasing the wrong seeker. Starscream wasn't relationship material. He barely passed for booty-call material these days...

Another comm came in. Starscream rolled his optics. Prime just didn't know when to quit-

_It would mean a great deal to me if you came. I enjoy your company, not just your frame._

Starscream spark began to ache. He rubbed his chest, wondering if he'd consumed some suspect fuel. It was either that or worse, Optimus was using his Primely sway and the mystical powers of the Matrix to try and win him over.

Dirty cheater.

* * *

Optimus was as surprised to see Starscream as Starscream was surprised to find himself stood in Optimus's apartment. He'd visited a few times before, normally in the early hours of the morning and never for long, climbing in through the window and having a quick, meaningless romp in the berth.

It felt like a different reality back then though, in the dark at three am, like it might not have happened at all. He would still wake up in the mornings alone, the berth cool and Starscream long gone.

But now? Starscream standing in his living room, twiddling his thumbs, waiting for Optimus to serve the fuel, was far, far from _that_ sort of reality. Having him here, now, it felt _real_.

Optimus called him over to the table and set a warm cube down in front of him. Starscream wasn't anywhere near as talkative as he usually was. He sat down wordlessly and tilted his cube towards him to study it's contents. He lifted it to give it a sniff, but didn't take a sip.

"So," Optimus began gently. "How was your day?"

It was a stupid way to start things off, but giving how surprised he was that Starscream actually turned up, he hadn't really prepared anything else to say. They were both going to have to muddle through this.

Luckily Starscream ignored the small talk. He set his cube back down and stared at him. "Is this a date?"

"Yes."

Starscream blinked like he was taken aback. "...So _this_ is what we're doing all evening. Taking to one another? Nothing else?"

Optimus lifted a hand and rubbed the back of his neck. "Not _all_ evening." He cleared his vocaliser. "You're welcome to spend the night..."

"Dinner and a frag," Starscream nodded, seeming marginally more comfortable with that. "I can do that."

Optimus watched him lift the cube and start to drink. And continue to drink. Taking deep, fast gulps of the fuel, downing it less than ten seconds. When he was done he dropped it back to the table and wiped a hand across his mouth with a deep exhale.

"Okay," he clapped his hands to rouse Optimus into action, "Drink up, let's go."

Optimus blinked, then realised what he was doing. He didn't move. "Starscream, why are you so averse to us speaking?"

"We speak all the time," Starscream threw up his hands. "What we _don't_ do all the time, is frag, so if you don't mind-"

"This is a date. Not one if your 'booty-calls'," Optimus said sternly, "I won't let you highjack this evening."

Starscream sat back in his seat and pouted. "Fine," he waved a hand. "Go on then, talk."

Optimus swallowed thickly. He lifted his cube and took a sip to gather his wits about him. Starscream was staring at him with a harsh impatient look, which wasn't going to make this any easier. "I understand that we began this ...relationship-"

"Not a relationship," Starscream interrupted.

"-this _arrangement_," Optimus corrected with a glare. "That we began this arrangement on the condition that it was casual and meant nothing. A way to release stress. But Starscream, I do not think I can continue it."

Starscream's face fell. He sat forwards with a frantic movement. "What?" His voice cracked. "_What_?! You're breaking up with me?!"

"I-" Optimus blinked, wondering how Starscream could jump to such a wrong conclusion so fast. "No of course I- I thought this wasn't a relationship?!"

"It's a friends-with-benefits relationship!" Starscream growled, olfactory crinkling angrily.

Optimus raised a brow. "I thought we weren't friends. I thought you didn't _need_ friends."

Starscream's cheeks were turning lilac again. He looked angry. He looked vulnerable. "Don't throw technicalities at me, Prime. No one breaks up with me! _I_ break up with _them_! So consider yourself dumped!"

"Starscream," Optimus held out his hands. "I am not breaking up with you. I want to _be_ with you!"

Starscream snapped his mouth shut, "...What do you mean?"

"I want to be with you. Really with you," Optimus impressed. "As more than just a casual pick up. In a relationship. A real one. Friends, and lovers, and perhaps one day, maybe even as conju-"

Starscream threw his hands out with a frantic shriek, "Don't say it!"

Optimus's spark ached, "I realise you might not want to hear this-"

"Shut _up_, Prime," Starscream snapped, waving his hands. "I'm just... You can't go around telling people you want to conjunx them!"

Optimus stared at him imploringly. "Even if it's true?"

"_Especially_ if it's true!" Starscream growled. "Don't you dare get my hopes up like that. Things don't work out for me, Prime! Nothing works out for me."

"That's no reason not to try," Optimus stood and moved around the table. Starscream also got up, but only to try and put the furniture between them as a barrier. "Either way, I can't see you every cycle, be with you every cycle, kiss you every cycle knowing it's not going to go anywhere-"

Starscream shrank back, and Optimus didn't even want to think about the sort of relationships he must have had before. How they must have gone wrong. How someone must have hurt him, to make him react like this to a mech telling him they loved him.

"Starscream," he tried gently, reaching a hand out towards him. "I'm only asking for a chance."

Starscream glared at his hand. "How do I know it's going to be any different this time?"

"Do you trust me?" Optimus whispered.

Starscream chewed his bottom lip.

"...Against my better judgment," he glanced at the extended hand again, and with a put out little eye roll, slapped his hand into it. Optimus closed his fingers around him and began to pull him closer, out from around the table. Starscream came grumpily, stiff and unrelenting when Optimus closed his arms around him.

"Does this mean 'facing is going to get boring and vanilla?" He mumbled against Optimus's shoulder.

"Nothing with you could possibly be boring or vanilla," Optimus said gruffly, stroking down a wing. He gestured back to the table, where _his_ fuel at least, sat unfinished. "Shall we-?"

"Haven't we just _done_ the talking bit?" Starscream smirked, tilting his face up to look at him. He slid his hands across Optimus's armour, his claws catching in some of his seams playfully. "Don't you want to celebrate our new official relationship status?"

Optimus frowned, "You're incorrigible."

"You're the one who wants to be with me," Starscream purred, taking hold of Optimus's clavicle seam and dragging him along.

Optimus came willingly into the berth-room, and let Starscream press him back up against the door when it shut with a smooth slide. The lighting was dimmer inside, and Starscream's optics burned with a smoulder. Optimus's spark filled with warmth, utterly taken with the sight of the beautiful seeker in the low light. Starscream leant close and ghosted their lips together, humming a light playful laugh, before dropping to the floor.

Optimus's slumped against the wall and peered down his own frame at him, watching Starscream get to his knees and palm at his codpiece. "I'm surprised you didn't drag me up to the roof," Optimus murmured, voice deeper and gruffer with arousal. "What, with your list..."

Starscream snorted. "Forget the list," he pressed a chaste kiss to the heated armour of Optimus's codpiece. Optimus stiffened at the warm pressure of full lips. "We need to make full use of the berth before going anywhere else."

A tongue dragged across the panel seam of his codpiece and coaxed it open. Optimus moaned when a mouth fell to the spike housing beneath, and Starscream's wings flittered and twitched as he continued his dedicated ministrations. Optimus reached down to touch the wing, running his fingers across the edge, feeling the indentations of the teeth marks he had put there himself just the cycle before.

It was a mark he was surprised to realise Starscream hadn't already removed. Optimus found himself liking that he had left it, even if only temporarily.

Perhaps, part of Starscream had hoped for this all along.


	5. Heat Isolation

Starscream was in heat, a fact he had spent the last three cycles vehemently denying both to himself and anyone who would listen. Not out of embarrassment, but necessity. He had work to do, experiments to finish, weapons to build, leaders to assassinate. 

The problem was that his condition -which would manifest at some point or another in every functional seeker in their prime and didn't affect him much asides from the odd hot flush and an increased appetite- had an averse effect from those _around_ him. 

Other flight frames suffered from minor increases in aggression, but even that only added an extra fight or two on the daily average. The real issue laid with those backwards-coded, ground-pounders! They skipped the competitive, peacocking stage of courting and seemed compelled to jump straight to the claiming part. 

And the result? Was Starscream couldn't walk from his lab to the command centre without a crowd of over-eager, panting, drooling, pests chasing him down and trying to ply him back to their quarters with gifts and promises and compliments. 

Even then, it was nothing that distracted Starscream from his work. The lock on his lab door worked and he could as easily tune out the wailing of desperate, horny grounders as he could the screams of his victims on the battlefield. 

Megatron, however, was as pragmatic and utilitarian as he as cruel, and already had protocols set up for if this situation were to arise on Earth - quarantine off base. 

And Starscream had far too much work to be doing to take a two week 'vacation' on the mainland, recharging out in the wet and cold, with nothing to do all day but watch humans go about their pathetic lives, and spend every waking minute squirming at the internal itch of his systems because he wouldn't have work to distract to himself from it. 

"You're in heat," Megatron growled from the other side of the plexiglass dome. 

The dome, which had dropped from the ceiling without warning on top of Starscream the second he had stepped into the command centre, created an effective barrier between him and everyone else, and most importantly, prevented Megatron from acting in any way improper. 

But it couldn't reverse time, and the Constructicons that had been following Starscream here, growling and muttering and ogling the sway of his wings, were still feeling the effects of his intoxicating electro magnetic waves. Scrapper had his hands and forehelm pressed against the plexiglass on the other side of the dome, and was staring at Starscream's back mournfully. 

Starscream's left optic twitched as he did his best to ignore him. "I'm not in heat." 

Megatron didn't dignify his lie with a response. "You've been running amuck of his base for three days-"

"_I_ haven't been running amuck of anything! _I've_ been going about my business as normal!" Starscream screeched indignantly, punching the inside of the dome. It was too thick to penetrate with force, and to be fair, standing this close to Megatron? He wasn't sure it would be such a good idea to drag his formidable commander under his spell. It would be much more difficult to shake him off than it would the average Decepticon. 

"The one's causing the problems are your hapless ground mechs," Starscream cast them all a disgusted look. "Acting like they've never gotten their spikes wet-"

Megatron wasn't humouring his technicalities today though. "If you won't leave the base voluntarily you'll be removed by force." 

"By who?" Starscream laughed, his cackle bouncing back against the plexiglass hauntingly. "The second you take me out of this dome you've built, by your reasoning, you'll all be too busy tugging on your spikes to evict me." 

"Then you won't be leaving that dome," Megatron tilted his head back with a smirk. "Your choice Starscream. You can leave and have the breadth of the planet to explore until your ...condition has improved. Or, you can sit in this dome for two weeks."

"Heats don't last that long!" Starscream snarled. 

"I'm taking the liberty of extending your stay for the sake of my own mental health," Megatron said flippantly. "This will be a welcome vacation for me." 

"Fine," Starscream relented. As awful as isolation out on the planet would be, it would be nowhere near as unbearable as having to sit in a clear plexiglass dome all day and have to watch Megatron go about his pathetic way running the faction into the ground and be unable to so much as throw a data-pad at him when he came up with a ridiculous idea. "I'll go." 

"I don't need to remind you that coming back early will earn you a blast to the wing?" Megatron added. "For your own sake, that is." 

Starscream remembered the time Skywarp had lost track of his heat cycle and returned to them during it's peak -and it typical Skywarp-fashion it was when they were mid-battle with the Autobots. He'd sent fifty mechs into violent confusion and nearly had his helm popped off his shoulders by Bonecrusher as a result. 

"So privileged are we, to have such a _thoughtful_ leader, Megatron," Starscream sneered sarcastically. 

Megatron rolled his optics and turned away. The plexiglass of the dome wasn't thick enough to muffle his derogatory mutter about seekers. 

Stupid grounder. 

* * *

  
Starscream flew across the mainland a few times, shot at some birds, landed on someone's car -and was greatly disappointed that it wasn't an Autobot- and ripped the satellite dishes off the roofs of a few buildings, then glanced at his chrono and realised it had only been four hours?! 

This heat cycle was never going to end. 

The itch was back with nothing else to occupy his mind, so he landed and kicked a tree a few times, scuffing up his foot and raining leaves and twigs everywhere in the process. His plating felt loose and ticklish, and with his core temperature so high his frame was struggling to cool his internal fluids. Energon had filled his face and was making his cheeks hot, and everything felt humid and sticky. 

He roared in frustration and punched the tree again, before making the decision to give up on handling his situation with any dignity by turning around and rubbing his back against the rough tree bark to get at the spots under his armour. His paint would be scraped beyond recognition and he'd be picking organic bits out of his plating for weeks, but in the moment it was worth it. He twisted his shoulders and leant back, undulating against it, hearing the tree groan as it began to tilt under his weight, the roots rising out of the soil. 

He was still in the midst of his highly undignified tree-grinding when a twig snapped somewhere nearby. 

His snapped his optics online and leapt from the tree, his null rays fired up and arms extended in front of him. A human didn't have the ability to sneak up on him, and he would have smelt any other organic creature a mile off, which meant- 

A slip of red and blue caught his optics between the trees. He fired without question, two blasts slicing through trees and exploding wood everywhere. 

He kept his weapons raised towards the smoke, inching forwards cautiously, and just about jumped out of his armour when another rustle of leaves sounded behind him. He whipped around and found himself staring down the barrel of Optimus Prime's blaster. 

"How did you move so fast?" He demanded angrily, forgetting to come up with something more threatening or confrontational. 

"You're more distracted than I would have expected," Prime did seem surprised to see him, which meant he had been stalking him for some time. He gestured for Starscream to lower his weapons with a little flick of his blaster. Starscream did so, pouting distastefully. 

"Where's the rest of your patrol?" Prime demanded. "You can't be alone. You wouldn't be that stupid." 

Starscream bit the inside of his cheek angrily. Rather than admit that he was indeed alone, evicted from his own fragging base due to bodily functions he could not control, he made a point of looking around at the smoking trees. "As alone as you seem to be, Prime. Unless you've mini-bots planted up these trees?" 

Prime's optics narrowed above his face-mask. "I was taking a walk. I didn't expect to find a Decepticon scout-"

"Scout?!" Starscream puffed himself up furiously, because yes, alright, maybe his heat was having some effect on his emotion's. "Don't insult me, Prime!"

Prime stepped forwards, his blaster trained on Starscream's chest. "What else would you be-"

He stopped abruptly, freezing in place. Starscream locked his armour tightly around himself, having a fairly decent idea of what it was that could stop a Prime in his tracks. 

To his surprise, he wasn't set upon by an artificially infatuated Autobot -thank Primus- and the Prime cleared his vocaliser, sounding awkward and strained. With his free servo he slotted a finger into his collar seam and adjusted the wires underneath, swallowing noticeably. "Megatron's taking his plots to a whole new level of underhanded creativity, I see." 

Starscream's indignity ignited his face then. He was sure his cheeks were beakons of pink light. The audacity of Prime, to think Megatron had the authority to send out cycling seekers tasked with seducing defenceless Autobots -to think _Starscream_ would go along with it.

"Get your processor out of the gutter," Starscream snarled. And was so angry he slapped the barrel of Prime's extended blaster, knocking it to the side. He jabbed a pointed claw at the Prime. "I _chose_ to isolate myself. I wasn't expecting to run into anyone. You Autobots are like bloodhounds-!"

Prime corrected his grip on the blaster but didn't aim it at Starscream's face this time. He had taken a step closer though, apparently subconsciously. "You expect me to believe this is a coincidence?"

Starscream stopped himself short from accusing Prime of stalking him because he wanted to get laid or something else only a pathetic Autobot would try. He twisted away, unafraid of both Prime's weapon and his intentions. "Think what you like, Prime." 

The blaster clicked and whirred as it heated up. Starscream stopped, twisting at the neck to glare over his shoulder. "Oh _please_..." he muttered, unimpressed. 

"Where do you think you're going?" Prime rumbled dangerously. 

"Sight seeing," Starscream rolled his optics. "Unless you want to take me back to your citrus-themed base? Where I'm sure your noble, principled mechs who are immune to their base coding won't set upon me the instant I step through the door?"

Prime's optics narrowed into electric blue slits of fire. He knew as well as Starscream that base coding had little respect for a mech's conscious programming. Some were more susceptible than others, yes -Prime was evidence of that now- but locking Starscream up in the brig for Primus-knew-how long (as Megatron would see little point in negotiating him back when he was happy for Starscream to be anywhere but at base), leaving his mechs no choice but to experience the draw of his heat signalling, would only result in some very un-Autobot like behaviour. 

Prime lowered the blaster but didn't offline it. He looked Starscream up and down, and just when Starscream thought that was that, that they'd go their separate ways and never speak of this to anyone, he said, "You chose to isolate?"

His voice was much softer than Starscream would have expended. And it shocked him into staying long enough to answer. "Yes," he snapped. 

"To make an already unpleasant situation more uncomfortable for yourself?" Prime pressed. Starscream couldn't tell if he was hearing sympathy or disbelief in the Prime's tone. 

"Well, I suppose Megatron might have encouraged my decision," Starscream sniffed. 

"I see," Prime murmured deeply. 

Starscream bristled. "A true leader understands that unpopular decisions may need to be made for the sake of the many." 

"Megatron is a 'true leader' now, is he?" Prime planted a hand on his hip, sounding amused. 

"I was talking about _me_!" Starscream yelled. "I know you're smirking under that cheap battle-mask, Prime. Wipe that expression off your face before I come over there and rearrange it for you!" 

Prime blinked at him. Starscream couldn't tell if he had done as he'd asked. He narrowed his optics in suspicion. 

"Besides, you're in no position to judge," he continued. "You don't know the first thing about seekers."

"Seekers, perhaps not," Prime agreed with a conceding nod, shifting his weight into one pede so his hips were cocked. He was acting distractingly casual. "But there are fliers among my ranks." 

"Those ridiculous flying cars," Starscream sneered in disgust. "Hardly in the same league. Don't insult me-"

"They experience these ...little inconveniences all the same." Prime explained awkwardly, clearly a little uncomfortable with the subject matter. '_Little inconveniences_' indeed. 

Still, the information did surprise Starscream. He didn't want to imagine what a circus the Aerialbots turned the Autobot base into when they had their heat. Seeing as they were a gestalt, they would be synchronised and cycle together. 

"And you lock them up?" 

"We maintain our distance," Prime said, and to contradict his methods with his Aerialbots, Starscream realised he was now directly in front of him, just two measured steps away from standing chest to chest. Starscream shuffled his footing, but didn't step back. His armour was itching again and he began to twitch his wings to disturb wiring underneath and get at it without embarrassing himself by rubbing up against a tree again. 

Prime's azure optics moved between his face and his wings. He was quite obviously very distracted. If Starscream wanted to, he could probably shoot the slagger and drag his unconscious frame back to the _Nemesis_. Megatron might let him back in again then... 

"You're not as susceptible to me as I would have expected," Starscream said boldly, cocking a hip and suppressing a smirk at the way Prime's optics tracked towards the cinch of his waist. "Older mechs like you are usually more ...clingy. More aware of the clock ticking on their time left to procreate." 

"I am not an old mech," Prime stated, sounding a little peeved. He dragged his gaze back up to meet Starscream's challenging gaze. "And I suppose I have some level of protection." He tapped his face-mask. Metal on metal tinged lightly. 

"And if you took it off?" Starscream inquired innocently, bringing his wings forwards to show off their impressive size and glimmer. He had always been ...curious about what Prime was hiding under there. A handsome face? A gruesome injury? Wild facial mods? 

The Prime cleared his vocaliser, clawing back some modicum of control. He tilted his face up, but couldn't seem to look away from Starscream entirely. "For your sake, I wouldn't." 

"But, for my sake, would you?" Starscream dropped his voice into a purr. His plating was warm and desperate for touch. Rubbing himself against a tree had done little to sate the ever present itch for touch. And Prime had large, strong servos, and a deep voice. He was tall and strong and best of all, he wasn't a lowly subordinate. 

He was the Prime. 

And if Megatron ever learned about it he would surely kill him. 

The thought created a little bubble of desire in the pits of his tank that grew and grew the more he contemplated it. It was such an horrifically bad idea that it might turn into the best 'face he'd ever had. 

And Prime's noble reluctance wasn't doing anything to soothe the fires of Starscream's growing desire. Starscream had almost forgotten what a mech with _manners_ looked like. 

He gazed up at the Prime and heard him swallow thickly. 

"You're under the influence of-"

"I haven't been snorting dark energon, you great prude," Starscream snapped. "I'm cycling. And I'm over-heating with charge. If you were a real gentle-mech-"

"A 'real gentle-mech' would frag an enemy seeker on the filthy ground, would they?" Prime growled reproachfully. 

Starscream smirked an the emotional response he had managed to illicit. "I was hoping you'd do it up against one of those sturdy looking trees, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers." 

Prime took another step towards him. He was within touching distance. Starscream could reach out and drag his finger tips down his glossy chassis, splay his hands out over the pristine glass on his chest, even flick one of those windshield wipers. He tilted his head back and met Prime's gaze, and parting his lips. 

If he had to spend two weeks isolated out in the wilderness of this backwards planet, he at least wanted a good story out of it. 

Feeling braver than he really had any right to be, Starscream reached up, and up, his claws reaching for Prime's face-mask. Instead of going to the hinges to remove it himself -a move too risky even by his standards- he tapped the front of the mask lightly, asking for access. Prime's optics narrowed. 

Starscream pouted, tempted to continue goading him. But no, Prime wouldn't respond to taunts. He wasn't Megatron. Starscream just needed to be-

There was a click as the latches on the face-mask released. 

-_patient_. 

Prime was neither disfigured nor bizarrely modded. He appeared to have everything in the right place. A mouth with lips and a strong nose, and the most perfect jawline Starscream might have ever set optics on. The sort of jawline only a Prime was allowed to have, unbearably straight and chiseled. Starscream was awash with his heat and he blamed that for the involuntarily dopey laugh that escaped him when he took the glory that was Optimus Prime in. 

He stifled it quickly, but not before Prime heard, and smirked. And made his unacceptably handsome face yet more appealing. 

"Who _made_ you?" Starscream hissed in envious confusion, stroking his claw tips along the edge of his jaw. 

A hand closed around his wrist. Starscream met his gaze and found Optimus's vibrant optics had darkened, and no longer resembling the azure of tropical ocean waters, but a darkening twilight sky. He leaned down, Starscream didn't lean back, his olfactory catching a waft of his scent. Earthy and masculine, burnt rubber, tarmac, and the grass his tires had driven through. 

It should have disgusted him. 

"You realise how bad an idea this is, don't you?" Optimus said quietly, his deep baritone intimate and smooth. 

Starscream repressed a shudder. The warmth from his cheeks spread across his helm and infected his processor, filling it with a sort of mental fog, blocking any sort of common sense from getting through. "Bad ideas are my speciality." 

"I'm aware." The ground below crunched under Optimus's heavy pede as he took that last step forward, entering Starscream's personal space and brushing against his EM field. Starscream watched Prime's optics flicker as he was hit with the full force of Starscream's heat signals. He shuttered them briefly, centring himself. 

He just needed a little push was all, Starscream thought, stepping between his huge pedes and arching his spinal strut so the curve of his cockpit brushed Prime's lower chassis. 

Optics snapped back online and in an instant Optimus's blaster was slipped into his subspace and his now free hand was circling Starscream's narrow waist. His touch sent sparks of electricity shooting up Starscream's backstrut, sating some of that bothersome itch. He twisting back into it, tossing his helm back, and left himself open for Optimus's next assault.

Lips crashed into his and the hands groping his wings drew a gasp out of him that had his mouth dropping open. Optimus struck with merciless speed, slipping him tongue and exploring his mouth. Starscream tilted his head and focused on his breathing as his temperature climbed. His hands scrambled for purchase on Optimus's humongous chest, catching a windshield wiper and tugging. 

Optimus snarled into his mouth, a primal, fierce noise that weakened Starscream's knee joints. He kissed back desperately, whining when Optimus caught his tongue and sucked on it. 

"Hmmm...." He purred gratefully, tilting his hips forward to rock his groin against Optimus's hip. 

A massive hand left his wing to grope his aft, squeezing a firm handful with relish. Starscream hitched his leg up, trying to lock it over Optimus's hip so he could climb the towering pillar of compassion and justice like a tree, but he wasn't tall enough. He hissed in frustration, cursing whoever's wise idea it was to make Primes so tall and inaccessible. 

It didn't seem to matter what he wanted though. Every kiss and stroke to his frame dragged Optimus deeper under his spell. They grew fiercer and rougher, Optimus's carefully cultivated gentility receding to make way for pure animalistic desperation. Starscream gasped when his lip was bitten and sucked. When his wings were squeezed and tugged. 

"Yes-!" Starscream cried victoriously when Optimus's fingers slipped down his aft and began to stroke his panel roughly, pressing and dragging with the sort of insistence that implied he wasn't going to wait for Starscream to grant him access much longer before taking it for himself. 

Starscream snapped the panel back and cried gutturally when two thick fingers pushed inside him. They withdrew with a slick rush of lubricant, twisted, then plunged back in, callipers folding away for them, his valve pliant and accommodating with the heat. Starscream curved his back and pushed his aft back into it, his face falling to Optimus's windshield, damps lips smudging the glass. 

Every plunge and stroke of Optimus's fingers soothed some of the internal ache and replaced it with glorious, pulsing pleasure, but there was still an element missing, something his base coding was desperate for. 

He palmed at Optimus's large codpiece, and it sizzled with heat under his fingers. Optimus grunted from his fumbling touch and yanked his fingers free of Starscream's valve. Panic flared when Optimus took Starscream by the shoulders and pushed him back, leaving his valve empty and his tanks rolling hungrily, before twisting him around and tugging him to his front. 

He didn't need more than a nudge for Starscream to fall to the ground on his knees gratefully, dignity no longer a part of the equation as he dropped to his chest and spread his thighs, angling his aft up. The ground shook as Optimus dropped to one knee behind him, fist working at his spike. 

Starscream watched him over his shoulder, licking his lips at the sight of pulsing bio-lights and smooth, glossy metal. He shuffled back on his knees, wiggling his hips invitingly. Prime took his hip and adjusted him. 

The spike nosed between Starscream's folds. He dropped his head so it hung between his shoulders, clenching his valve in anticipation and taking a steadying breath to relax it again. He felt his valve wink around the very tip of Optimus's spike, before opening up to allow it access. Ridge by ridge it pressed into him, unbelievably hot and feeling twice as thick as it had looked. Starscream's valve took it greedily, sucking it deeper, and Prime couldn't seem to stop himself from sinking the entire length into him all in one go. 

Their connection triggered something in Starscream, overriding his last remaining conscious programming and letting the heat run wild, and all he cared about was getting the mech behind him to take him and use him and fill him up. He rolled his hips backwards, fluttering his wings temptingly. 

Optimus growled and leaned over his back, settling some of his colossal weight over Starscream. Starscream's arms shook under him, but he took the weight without any usual complaint, bumping his aft back to build friction in his valve when Optimus's unexpectedly beautiful mouth fell to his wing and claimed it with a biting kiss.

Strong arms locked around Starscream's middle and Prime began to move, rocking at first, before lengthening his strokes and thrusting into him. His hips scraped against Starscream's aft, leaving streaks of paint in their wake. The earth under Starscream's knees was soft and he began to sink into it under Prime's firm shoves. It felt cool as it sank into the seams of his legs and he couldn't care less about the mess it would make. Nor that of the lubricant currently streaming down his inner thighs in pulses, displaced by Optimus's thick spike. 

His thighs began to splay outwards, knocked out of position by Optimus's steadily increasing pace, and soon Starscream was flat on the ground, his cheek in the grass and his frame pressing into the earth. Optimus took him by the hips and held him steady as he rose onto his knees and plunged his spike down into him. 

Starscream howled at the new depths he was reaching, his leg kicking out in surprise as the pleasure became so intense it almost hurt. Optimus jabbed deep into him, the tip of his spike reaching the end of his valve channel and kissing the seal of his gestation tank. It stung at first, Starscream's internal sensors trying to tell him there was nowhere else to go, but his sharpening cries only egged the Prime on. 

He clawed fistfuls of grass and mud as Optimus started pounding into him so fast his cries morphed into one endless howl of overwhelming pleasure. Prime's spike pierced the seal of his gestation tank and sent of burst of confusing signals shooting through Starscream's frame- sharp pain but euphoric pleasure. His valve bit down on Prime's spike and he overloaded with a pathetic whimpering noise. Lubricant spilled across the ground, flooding the long grass under his hips, and then Prime penetrated his seal one last time, before overload came to him as well. 

The grass stirred in front of Starscream's face and he exhaled in one long rush, twitching and shuddering at the feeling of warmth that rushed over him. A second, far less intense overload hit him when his frame registered foreign coding entering his gestation tank, a reward for having sated his own heat. Prime was still laid on top of him, his warm, not vents tickling Starscream's sensitive wings. 

They laid together for some time, Prime recovering and Starscream lamenting what a state he would look when he finally got off the ground. And it wasn't like he could return to the _Nemesis_ to take a shower either. 

He heard a click and snap, and looked back to see Optimus had sealed his face-mask again. Starscream felt a conflicting sense of disappointment. 

He then had to suffer the mortifying ordeal of them separating. Prime had the privilege of hiding behind his mask, but Starscream couldn't school his features against the blushes and cringes of Prime pulling out of his gaping valve. He grumbled some apology for whatever state he must have left the array in. 

Starscream quickly sealed his panel and snapped his thighs shut before rolling over. He pushed himself up, and realised with a scowl he was sat in a puddle of his own lubricant. 

And he could already tell from the look in Prime's optics that he was smeared from pede to wing in mud. 

"Oh," Prime murmured awkwardly, straightening up and peered down at Starscream's predicament with sympathetic blue optics. "You appear to be-"

"I know what I look like!" Starscream snapped and began to stand by himself. He slapped away Prime's offered hand, wobbling as he found his balance. His valve was tingling and his knees weren't as reliable as he would have liked, but it was good enough. "A small price to pay, I suppose." 

Prime cleared his vocaliser. "Will you return to the _Nemesis_ now that your ...problem has been taken care of?" 

"Yeah, and tell Megatron what, exactly?" Starscream muttered, trying to brush down his brown smeared armour. "That I found a helpful Autobot to frag the heat out of me? He'll be _overjoyed_. Might even send you a 'thank you' card."

Prime nodded in understanding, gracefully ignoring the sarcasm, "No, that probably wouldn't be advisable." He met Starscream's optics again. "Will you be-?"

"Alright?" Starscream cast him an incredulous look. "Of course I will. Unless you're now planning to drag me off to your brig and hold me ransom? "

"That would hardly be fair." 

"Because you fragged me?" Starscream cocked a hip, snickering at the disgraced Prime. 

But Optimus wasn't quite as ashamed of his actions as Starscrean would have expected. He met his gaze smugly, "Because I wouldn't dream of parading a seeker of your stature out in front of my Autobots looking like this." 

Starscream very pointedly didn't look down at himself. "Perhaps you're a gentle-mech after all." 

Optimus nodded and began to turn away. "Take care, Starscream." 

"I'll be here all week!" Starscream called after him before thinking. Prime paused and turned back, helm tilted in interest. Starscream bit his lip, "Well I ...I don't have anywhere else to be. That's all." 

Prime nodded. "Perhaps we'll run into one another again then." 

"Perhaps," Starscream smirked, watching the Prime turn again and walk between the trees. Starscream watched his aft as he walked away, and was so utterly enamoured with the sway of his hips that he completely forgot to take a parting shot at the Autobot foolish enough to turn his back on him. 

Oh well, he'd shoot him next time. 

After he'd gotten another few mind blowing overloads out of him that was.... 


End file.
